Planning out my 2024

Warning, this isn't a testing or professional blog, more of a personal update

Wow.... 2023 was a year. Did anyone else feel like it just.... flew by?

I've said in previous blogs that I love New Year's resolutions and so of course, I'm making you read all my private thoughts and dreams 😂. I originally wrote this plan out on a hike in January, but life got in the way so I never released the blog.... oh well, better late than never.

Now... the question I want to put forward is: is it possible to proactively engineer a year to be the best year of our lives? Is this something we have control over? We certainly won't if we don't try, and we often don't anyway, but I truly believe that if we do try to engineer success we often do achieve it, in whatever form that matters to us.

The last time I did this exercise was at the start of 2022 intending to refine my life, then 2022 absolutely kicked me in the teeth. It was a hard year, and nothing went to plan... everything got turned upside down, but 2023... 2023 was the best year of my life, I got to live in a different country (even if just for a short time), and felt purpose in my life again, met some amazing people, but very little of it was with well planned out.

I decided this year to take on the challenge to really define and build my perfect 365-day experience. The idea for this comes from the video How to Make 2024 The Best Year of Your Life by Ali Abdaal, but it follows a much older philosophy of the Wheel of Life from Buddhism, thus proving that no idea is ever original and all advice is repackaged.

1. The Wheel of Life, What is the current balance of my life, and where can I improve?
2. Future Celebrations, What would I like to be celebrating a year from now? what 9 things have happened for me to say "This really was the best year of my life"
3. My Ideal week, am I making the time to achieve what I have committed to? I want to update this regularly to figure out what works and what doesn't.

The Wheel of Life

In the complex aspects of our lives, the Wheel of Life serves as a compass guiding us through the diverse landscapes of our aspirations and challenges. Rooted in Buddhist philosophy, it has found its way into contemporary self-help and personal development realms, offering a holistic framework for assessing and improving various facets of our lives.

For me, I find that looking at my life in balance is useful to make sure that I'm not neglecting any important aspect. I am only mortal, so while I can't work everything at once, I can check my balance better with this framework in mind. It helps me see which aspects for improvement I should shift my energy to, or what areas can roll over into "maintenance" mode.

My future Celebrations

Calling back to the video above, Imagine you are having dinner with your best friend or significant other in December, and they say "Hey, insert name here how was your year? Was it a good one?". You say "Yeah I think it was good?" and you start to rack your brain for all the things you achieved and you turn up with a vague feeling of achievement, regret, and maybe some small exciting moments. Maybe you got a promotion, had a child, or went on a holiday, but you kind of felt like a passenger in your own life. A victim of the fates.

Now imagine a different year, but instead of just being a conversational aside, the dinner was called specifically to celebrate the year and the achievements everyone had.

You came prepared this time. Whip out the non-alcoholic champagne and vegan caviar ! Everyone talked about their highs and lows, the strengths and weaknesses they encountered. You laugh at the plans the Moirae set for you, and had the best year of your life by your design.

Which of these two visions of the future is more appealing to you? I know which one I want.

Here are a few goals that I have picked out for the year:

Family - I want to spend more time with my family, niece and nephew, parents and brother. I want to see my loved ones every fortnight and share a meal with them.
Mission -I want to live in Korea for a few months and immerse myself in the culture and lifestyle and speak the language, while being financially secure.
Challenge - I want to release my game this year, even if it's a bust and makes no money.

Finally, I bundle it all up in a visualization that helps me imagine what it looks like:

Ordering a coffee in Busan in Korean, while working on my game... With a six-pack.

I pin this to the top of my daily journal and read it out whenever I find the time. A year is a long time and I want to make sure that this is still the future that I want, right now it still is.

My Ideal week

Finally, we get to the “how” of the whole thing. I have blocked out my calendar and built a general life routine, using both the wheel and celebrations above to check for balance. My plan is to adjust this as the year goes on as I want to focus on different things, but always keep the things I want in balance. This is not a set-in-stone week block, some days work will take up more of my life and some days I'll want to throw away my game to go away for a weekend spend time with friends or just go for a walk and touch some grass.

The point is not to be a machine but to set aside some time to do the things I set out to do.

Conclusion

If any of this has resonated with you, I’im happy to have a chat about it. No, seriously, if you have any thoughts or questions, or even if you just think I'm super cool and want to start a fan club for me - reach out. The internet is a wonderful thing.

And now that I've finally put this post up... time to put my money where my mouth is. Hopefully, I won't be making an apology blog in 2025.